With basic training tips in place, the family
had some homework to do before Victoria returned for the second session in two weeks. She gave the family a manual to be used as a ref- erence guide. Victoria left her cell number and assured them they could call or text her with questions or issues at any time. “Don’t rehearse it wrong. If you’re not sure,
I told them, please call me and I’d walk them through it,” said Victoria. There was a lot of communication between
Jagger’s humans and Victoria in between those early training sessions. She kept reminding the family to stay in control of their environment with Jagger; to be aware of the things that trig- gered him, and really, to just be aware overall. “The most important thing was to make
As soon as your dog gives you any kind of compliance, it’s important to immediately reward him.
Victoria Parker, dog trainer
“ ”
sure that everybody stayed safe,” added Victoria. “Manage the environment, always have a command to put in place, and keep reinforcing those commands.” During lesson two, Jagger showed remark-
able improvement. “We had to delay our second lesson by one week as the family felt they needed some additional time with Jagger to solidify their boot camp training with him,” said Victoria. Jagger was already showing signs of becom-
ing a different dog in attitude and behavior with the grandmother. However, he had begun chal- lenging the child’s father by growling and lung- ing. “Jagger may have been bluffing, but you have to take a dog’s communication seriously,” said Victoria. “Nevertheless, Jagger’s behavior was inappropriate.” The husband admitted that he had not
invested as much time in working with Jagger as the his wife and mother-in-law had done dur- ing the period between lesson one and lesson two. Victoria also noticed the husband was stay- ing in arguments with Jagger far too long. “He needed to give Jagger a way out once
the dog offered an appeasing behavior,” said Victoria. “Even after Jagger had successfully complied with the command, the husband con- tinued maintaining eye contact with the dog. Remember, as soon as your dog gives you any kind of compliance, it’s very important to immediately reward him. I reminded the hus- band to walk away in order to release the pres- sure off Jagger. Otherwise, Jagger would feel like he was still in trouble.” Victoria showed the husband how to use his
own body language to communicate command and compliance with Jagger, and reminded him to be more animated with his praise of Jagger. “We had to work on that a bit with the hus-
64 THE NEW BARKER
band,” added Victoria. “The more energy we put into our commands, the more responsive the dog will be. Also, I told him not to take Jagger’s growling so personal. Jagger wasn’t growling because he didn’t like the husband. He was growling because he didn’t want to do what he was being told to do. We have to be a little more thick-skinned, emotionally, when working with our dogs.” The family was soon able to defuse the
newly-rehearsed bad behavior that Jagger was displaying with the husband. They also worked on reintroducing some mild distractions with Jagger while reinforcing the commands put into place during the first session. Examples: Ringing the doorbell and reinforcing stay-in-place; Grandmother picking up her grandchild (aka Jagger’s best friend and top stimuli for bad behavior) and reinforcing the sit or down command. Their biggest accomplishment with Jagger
was with the grandmother, who was most pleased with the results after just the second lesson. “She was no longer afraid of Jagger,” said
Victoria. “She became more aware of his body language and whenever he became stiff, she gave him the ‘go-to-your-bed” command. That was working very well for everyone, especially Jagger.” LESSON THREE REVEALS A SETBACK During lesson three, Jagger seemed to
regress. “He was being a stubborn little booger,” laughed Victoria. “It was very much a case of 10 steps forward, and three steps back by the third lesson.” Jagger had figured out how to grab the leash
in a way was difficult for anyone to give him a correction. “We weren’t able to stop the behavior once he took over the leash,” said Victoria. “He was not listening to the commands.” As a solution, Victoria considered using two
collars and two leashes on Jagger, but with the grandmother looking after her granddaughter, that wasn’t a safe option for everyone involved, including Jagger. As a training tool, Victoria put a remote training collar on Jagger and set it at the lowest level. She described the feeling as being a tap on the shoulder; ‘hey, I’m talking to you, Jagger.’ “We also implemented some fun trick train-
ing to bring up Jagger’s interest level in people pleasing and communication skills, including shaking paws and crawling” said Victoria. They used a flip pole with a toy at the end
of the pole. The idea was to get him into a real frenzy, then use the command to drop. “It wore him out, which was a good
thing,”said Victoria.
www.TheNewBarker.com
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